page_title: Unrecognized Bedouin villages in Israel
section_title: Israel
hierarchical_section_title: Unrecognized Bedouin villages in Israel / History / Israel
caption_attribution_description: English: Hura's roads
context_page_description: Unrecognized Bedouin villages in Israel are rural Bedouin communities in the Negev and the Galilee which the Israeli government does not recognize as legal. Often they are referred to as "unrecognized villages".
context_section_description: During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the Negev region saw harsh battles between the newly created Israel Defense Forces and the Egyptian army. In the aftermath of the war, most of the Negev was included within the borders of the newly established State of Israel. Censuses before and after the war indicate that about 80% of the Bedouin population left the Negev to areas that remained under Arab rule.
  The Israeli authorities' treatment of the Bedouin population was ambivalent. On the one hand, the Bedouin were considered loyal to the new state, and some of them even volunteered to serve in the IDF. On the other hand, Israel saw the Negev as its "hinterland", being sparsely populated and as the West Bank came under Jordanian rule. The policy eventually adopted was forcing the Bedouin to concentrate in an area of 1,100 km², that has become known as the Siyagh (Arabic for "the permitted area") region, stretching between the West Bank border to the north-east, Be'er Sheva to the south-west and Arad to the south. All the Bedouin remaining under Israeli rule were granted Israeli citizenship, but the Siyagh region was placed under martial law until 1966, like many other mostly Arab-populated areas in Israel at the time. This was the time when most of the unrecognized villages of today were established.
  The Bedouin claims for ownership on lands in the Negev were, by and large, rejected by the Israeli authorities, on the pretext that the ownership is not appropriately documented or that the lands claimed are not eligible to private ownership. Both Bedouin citizens and state authorities agree that only a small minority of the claim can be backed with full legally valid documentation, however the Bedouin claimants demand that their traditional ties with the lands, namely the fact that they de facto held the rights on these lands without objection on behalf of the former Ottoman or British authorities, be recognized by the State of Israel as ownership.
  Implementing her land policies, Israel started to rely on the Ottoman Land Code of 1858, the only preceding law frame in the region. According to these regulations, lands that were not registered as of private ownership, were considered state lands. Israel relied mainly on Tabu recordings. Most of the Bedouin land fell under the Ottoman class of 'non-workable' (mawat) land and thus belonged to the state under Ottoman law. Eventually, Israel nationalized most of the Negev lands, using The Land Rights Settlement Ordinance from 1969.
  In order to reinforce the invisible Siyag fence and sedentarize the Bedouin, the State employed a reining mechanism, the Black Goat Law of 1950. The Black Goat Law curbed grazing so as to prevent land erosion, prohibiting the grazing of goats outside recognized land holdings. Since few Bedouin territorial claims were recognized, most grazing was thereby rendered illegal.
  Most Bedouin who had the option, preferred not to register their lands under the Ottoman rule as this would mean being taxed without representation or services. Those whose land claims were recognized found it almost impossible to keep their goats within the periphery of their newly limited range. Into the 1970s and 1980s, only a small portion of the Bedouin were able to continue to graze their goats. Instead of migrating with their goats in search of pasture, the majority of the Bedouin migrated in search of wage-labor.
  In the mid-1970s Israel let the Negev Bedouin register their land claims and issued special certificates that served as the basis for the "right of possession" later granted by the government. Following the signing of the Treaty of Peace with Egypt, it became necessary to move an airport from a Sinai peninsula to a locality inhabited by some five thousand Bedouin. The government, recognizing these land claim certificates, negotiated with the certificate holders and paid compensation to them. Most moved to Bedouin townships, built houses and established businesses.
  The Israeli government has promoted the sedentarization of the Bedouin population. In 1963, Moshe Dayan said:
  We shou
caption: Hura downtown
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